National Puzzlers' League Convention: A Preview

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National Puzzlers' League Convention: A Preview

Tyler Hinman is a champion puzzle solver, winning the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament five years straight. (You can witness his puzzling prowess in the entertaining documentary Wordplay.) We're delighted to have him contributing to the Decode blog. Today, he brings us a preview of an upcoming gathering of the puzzling tribes in Seatlle. It sounds mindbendingly fun!

It’s July. You're in a nice hotel, sharply dressed, enjoying a party in one of the ballrooms. Suddenly, a small group of people dashes past the open doors towards a basket of apples. They rummage around in the basket until, with a triumphant cry, they pull a rolled-up piece of paper out of one of the apples. Scribbling furiously on a clipboard, the group dashes off down the hallway.

You just witnessed part of the Saturday night Extravaganza at the 2009 National Puzzlers' League (NPL) convention. Since 1976, League members, or Krewe, have gathered somewhere in North America to game, chat, and puzzle their brains out. This year, they’re meeting up in downtown Seattle July 1-4, in a convention they call ConPac.

The NPL prides itself on being the “world’s oldest puzzlers’ organization,” founded in 1883. Despite the vaguely stuffy image that phrase conjures up, the annual conventions are lively and entertaining, deftly combining good conversation and puzzle-solving. Many Krewe describe the con experience as "a few days with the other people from my home planet."

So how does this group fill four days in July? Here are a few ways:

* A party kicks things off for those who trickle in on Wednesday. It feels like a family reunion.* Groups of puzzlers will peel off from the hotel to see the host city’s sights. Sometimes, locals will even put together puzzles that require solvers to explore the area’s attractions, like Ann Arbor’s fairy door hunt.* Each con has three official cryptic crosswords. Attendees are encouraged to solve in pairs, with a different partner for each puzzle.* A hospitality suite is furnished with plenty of food and, more tantalizingly, a tableful of unofficial puzzles. Trivia sets, vowelless crosswords, newly invented puzzle types – anything can be found here.* Friday night and Saturday afternoon are filled with informal competitions. There are team games, individual pencil puzzles, and the traditional "flat" competition. (See the guide on the NPL’s website for more information about the NPL's signature puzzle type.)* Creative attendees bring unofficial games of their own. Homemade games of Jeopardy! are very popular and the reason old Quizzard sets are so cherished. Of course, in the League version, we never run out of time before all the clues are read, nobody gets excluded from the final round, and odds are good you’ll have at least one former contestant at your table.* Saturday night features the Extravaganza, a themed puzzle suite of some sort. All the individual puzzles tie together into a final puzzle called the “metapuzzle,” which gives a satisfying ultimate answer. Players may opt to be on a "running" team, which tries to solve as quickly as possible, or a "strolling" team, which takes things more leisurely. Teams usually huddle together and work through everything at a table, but last year's event involved a mad dash through the Baltimore hotel, much to the chagrin of a fancy banquet in the next room over.* On the last day of the party, books and other prizes, all donated by members, are piled onto a table. Virtually any achievement during the con (winning a game, having one's completed Con cryptic randomly drawn, etc.) will get you to the table to pick up some swag.

Sleep, you’ll notice, is not on the agenda. There are 361 other days in the year for that sort of thing.